The Return of the Nativo. Lopez rises from political graveyard to lead immigrants again””but will he harm more than heal?

“n Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 comedy of capitalist errors, there’s a scene in which Chaplin’s Little Tramp picks up a red flag that falls from the back of a speeding truck. He chases after the truck and tries to wave it down””with the red flag. Unemployed workers in the streets mistake the Tramp for a labor leader and rally behind him. Hilarity and jail time ensue.

There’s something like that scenario playing out in Orange County, where longtime Latino activist Nativo Lopez seeks to rouse the immigrant masses again. Wherever you saw demonstrators rally on behalf of Mexican immigrants the past couple of weeks, chances are Lopez had already run to the head of the parade. There he was on March 25, arms locked with the Latino political elite of Los Angeles, as they joined 500,000 immigrant marchers in the streets of LA. That was his awesome silver pompadour matching the stormy skies on April 2, leading a rally outside Costa Mesa City Hall to protest that city’s plan to transform its police department into migra. Lopez popped up yet again at an April 10 rally in downtown Santa Ana attended by about 400 people. And was that his sonorous voice at a March press conference in Los Angeles, babbling about the sleeping giant that had been “shaken and begins to awaken,” a turn of phrase worthy of Don King? Sí­. It was.”

Stumble it! | |